With the advent of digital television content, greater flexibility is available to service providers as well as users. Traditionally, television content has been provided by satellite or cable providers. However, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) has been proposed to allow other service providers (such as telephone companies) to provide television content to users. IPTV involves the transmission of television content over IP networks using broadband connections to customer premise equipment, which include set-top boxes, digital video recorders (DVRs), and so forth.
Viewers often tend to ignore advertisements that are periodically presented during television broadcasts. If the viewers are not interested in a particular television advertisement, then the time period during which such television advertisement is being displayed is wasted time (at least from the viewer's standpoint). From the service provider's standpoint, viewers not paying attention to television advertisements may result in revenue loss, particularly if advertisement revenue is based on some activity generated from the particular television advertisement.